Marcelo Camelo

About the Video

Back when you started with Los Hermanos, your first demos were on tape. Now you go straight to the computer if you want to record anything. What are the good and the bad aspects of that evolution?

Marcelo Camelo: The nice thing about it is that you can experiment a lot before recording. You can see what works, and what doesn’t work. You can record the drums, then the bass, then record the guitar at home, it’s so much simpler than it used to be. It also makes it possible for people who don’t have much money to record something sound-quality-wise that is not as bad as our first demo was. I think the idea is to make it easier. Technology’s function is to become the facilitating instrument.

That facilitating aspect has really changed music, because you don’t go to the store to buy an album anymore.

Yeah, man, I haven’t bought an album in years. I went to Fnac today with my wife and we went downstairs and were like tourists there, looking at the albums like, “What are we doing here? Is this thing for real?” There is no sense having an album. I go on YouTube and listen to it instead.

Do you think that technology influences the way you write or produce music?

Yes, totally. Everything influences me, as a matter of fact, especially the information I consume. The internet itself is a new medium, so that completely changes the parameters, you begin seeing artists that use the internet to express themselves. We are really privileged to see the coming of something as new and powerful as the internet, which connects people and enables us to develop a kind of intelligence that I think is completely new -- this collective intelligence, feedback, responsiveness, and conversation.

Our ideas about information have changed completely in a few years. Now the idea of an encyclopedia seems really bizarre, whereas a few years ago it was the standard.

Microsoft's Encarta went defunct last year. People looked at it and said, “Man, this doesn’t make sense.” The thing is, having information in one static place has become obsolete. When the internet started, I looked at music and said, “Man, crap, crap, crap.” I cannot sell it because owning it has no meaning. You can access it elsewhere if you don't want to pay me. And I think that’s one economic dilemma for people who sell information. Personally, I feel comfortable and happy knowing that I can be a consumer and take advantage of this new technology, because I consume information 100 percent of the time and produce information a very small amount of the time.

What's an example of you taking advantage of all this new technology and access?

For me, the best song of the year was written by a man who approached me in the street and said, “I have something on the internet, why don’t you check it out?” His name is Nativo do Brasil and the song is called Mulher Maravilha. It is a guy playing the guitar in his living room. I heard it a thousand times, it’s got a thousand page views, all mine. For me, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. The song is really incredibly good, the guy is very, very sincere. I think the future is much more like that than with dull robots. The idea I have about the future sounds much more like Nativo do Brasil than anything else.